Chapter Three
Spelt and Mugs and Socks and Coal
The knock on the door is tentative, but Taylor is quick to answer it, and ushers Yseult into the room to the intrigued stares of the other three people within.
Being almost permanently at the other end of the compound from the senior staff, the only truly familiar face to her is that of Jim Shannon, who drops by now and again on his security rounds. He clearly remembers her, she notes, as he nods a greeting with a cheerful smile. Elisabeth she also knows to some degree, having escorted injured colleagues to the infirmary from time to time - though she has managed to avoid sufficient damage to warrant care herself. Her face is friendly, though it's clear that she is having a spot of trouble placing Yseult's face.
The only face left is unfamiliar, so she knows by a process of elimination that she must be looking at Malcolm Wallace. His expression is guarded, but not unfriendly, and he indicates a spare seat to his left. Perhaps he's only just found out about the extra responsibility of her team, then.
Taylor returns to the head of the table, "Allow me to introduce Yseult Maxwell - our new head of Sustainable Industries," he points about the table at his staff, "Jim Shannon, Elisabeth Shannon and Malcolm Wallace." Each nods again as they are introduced.
"Izzlt?" Jim tries, rather awkwardly.
"Something like that," she smiles, "Most people call me Max."
"One syllable." Malcolm observes, brightly, "That's something you could manage, Jim."
"I have zero problems with syllables, Mal-col-mus." Jim shoots right back, without rancour. From their expressions, Yseult realises that their spat is nothing more than a mild joke - a continuation of some largely forgotten enmity that is carried on more out of habit than any genuine ire.
"Forgive my colleagues," Elisabeth smiles, "sometimes they even behave like adults - if you give them enough time, and they think nobody's watching."
"That sounds rather like my team."
"Max here came in on the seventh," Taylor resumes, "We had some major technical breakdowns early on - and I realised that we were going to need to scale down our tech sooner or later when we couldn't get requests through except when Hope Plaza opened the portal. It was one hell of a fight to get a team through - I put the request in when the fourth pilgrimage arrived."
"I think it was difficult to pin us down, Commander." Yseult admits, "There aren't that many of us around anymore - I was one of the last students to receive a Masters in Archaeology before they started shutting the courses down to concentrate on Earth sciences. I never got the chance to obtain a doctorate. Most of my team don't have my qualifications - they just did what they did for their own education and interest."
"Where did you study?" Malcolm asks, always interested in such matters.
"The University of Cologne. Despite my accent, which I learned from my late husband, I'm actually German."
He nods, though he looks slightly embarrassed at her mention of widowhood, concerned that he has committed some sort of gaffe.
"Why don't you give us a rundown on what your team can do, Max?" Taylor asks, briskly.
"Of course, Commander." Yseult sets the backpack on the table, "I thought it would be easier if I brought a few items to demonstrate what we do."
"Show and tell." Jim grins, cheerfully, "I love show and tell."
Elisabeth examines a swatch of buff coloured fabric with interest, "What fibre is this?"
"That's some basic linen - we've been trying hemp and cotton, as well as the flax that the swatch came from. We found some ancient strains which are giving good results. Geoff, my engineer, has been working on recreating a water-powered spinning jenny so that we can process the fibres more quickly. If that works, we might try a spinning mule to increase the overall size of production, particularly if we mechanise the ginning process. The cotton, in particular, looks very promising - we might be able to create some heavier grades to replicate wool - without sheep, that's not something that we're going to have a lot of, I'm afraid."
"I could put a team onto researching some synthetic fibres that could be mixed with these," Malcolm muses, "At least for heavier grades of fabrics - and waterproofs." He pauses, and taps at his plex, making a note to remind himself, "how are these being woven?"
"Mostly by hand at the moment," Yseult admits, "I haven't got the resources to put someone onto building a powered loom."
"You have now." Taylor interjects, "What's this?" he picks up a heavy, metallic lump.
"That's a bit of steel bloom, Commander. We got it out of our blast furnace a couple of days ago. Mike, my assistant, did some basic checks on it, and the carbon content is quite low. It's still a bit high in phosphorus - we're experimenting on blending ancient and modern techniques to recreate the Bessemer process."
"Which does what, exactly?"
"Converts iron into steel." Malcolm translates, eyeing the sample with interest, "Do you want me to run some tests on this? I can get you some more accurate results later today."
"That would be very helpful; we can't get accurate results by buffing the bloom - it's more a question of seeing what the sparks look like. We had some more success a few years ago, but we didn't take it any further because we didn't want to deforest our sector, and we only had a limited supply of iron sand to work with; we managed to get some good samples of tamahagane, though."
"Some what?" Jim asks.
"Very high quality steel that's traditionally forged in Japan. It used to be used for swords and knives - but the last craftsmen who made it died about seventy years ago. It's not made anymore, so I had to do some research to recreate it." She points up at the wall behind Taylor's head, "That's one of the blades I got from it. When I'm not making steel, I work it."
Heads turn and look up at the short, straight-bladed sword that is mounted there, "I presented the Commander with that a year after my husband died - to say thank you for the efforts that were put into trying to save him. I made two, but you have the best one, Commander Taylor."
"I do?" He seems surprised.
"I also made a parang, one of your botanists bought it from me about two years ago, Doctor Wallace."
"Rob? Yes, I remember him showing it to me - very impressive." He pauses, "Call me Malcolm. Everyone does."
"And what about aluminum?" Taylor asks, suddenly, "Most of our structures are built from it."
"We can't smelt bauxite cleanly, I'm afraid." Yseult admits, "Aluminium is phenomenally useful, but the process to get it is pretty polluting. Our best bet is to recycle and re-cast parts - which I think you're already doing. We could combine the foundries if we're going to start making steel on a larger scale - though that would take a lot of charcoal. One thing the Cretaceous doesn't have in extensive supply is coal - it's still being formed; so it's charcoal or nothing. The first thing we did when we set up was to start coppicing the primitive oaks in our sector so that we wouldn't deforest the entire place once we started making steel. We're just getting to the point now where the system will start to work properly."
Taylor looks to Malcolm for an explanation; and gets only an uncomprehending shrug in return, "Some form of woodland management?" He hazards, and looks relieved when Yseult nods.
Jim, who has been rather left behind in all the technical discussion, reaches for another of the samples, a rather nicely thrown earthenware mug with a shiny, brown glaze, "What about these?"
"We have a few potters around the Colony," Taylor admits, "but we needed a place to fire the pots - and these guys are the ones who do it."
"We've also built a watermill as a backup for grinding spelt flour." Yseult adds, "Since it hasn't been possible to persuade any modern strains of wheat to grow here, the ancient versions have proved to be very good alternatives. It's still a bit difficult to grind it finely enough to create cake flour, so I'm afraid cupcakes are off the menu for the foreseeable future; but the breads are proving very popular."
"They certainly are with my lot." Elisabeth smiles, "How fine a fabric could you create? I'm thinking of the possibility of manufacturing fine gauze for medical use."
"That's something we can work on - it's all still very much at the earliest stages - once we have the spinning jenny working, we can start experimenting with grades of fibres. If we can increase iron or steel production to build something akin to a Lancashire loom, then I could have a working cotton mill up and running in a few years - give or take."
"I could ask Rob to investigate domesticating the cotton if you're still picking it wild." Malcolm muses, reaching for the swatch.
"We are, at the moment; again, it's something we just haven't had the time or resources to do." Yseult admits, "It was quite a hunt to find that cotton plant - so we've found somewhere to grow it inside the compound in the hope that it doesn't turn out to be like a marauding triffid and take over the entire woodland. Other than that, we've largely left it alone."
"So it's a new thing, then?" Jim asks. Something in his expression suggests to Yseult that there's another dig coming as she nods, "Hey, Malcolm - why not name it after yourself?"
Malcolm utters a faint groan, "Okay - so I was being a prat when I named that bloody pterosaur after myself. I only did it the once."
"And I'm never going to let you forget it." Jim beams.
"The tradition is to name it after the person who found it. Which wasn't me - so how about Gossypium Maxwellii?" Malcolm counters.
"Are you talking dirty, Malcolmus?"
"Children - behave." Elisabeth interjects, "This is a senior staff meeting; not playtime." She sighs, and looks across at Yseult, "They're not normally like this - well, not in public."
Dumping her backpack on her kitchen table, Yseult makes herself a cup of mint tea and sits down to think over how her meeting has gone.
The enthusiasm for her projects has come as something of a surprise to her; after so many years of being utterly ignored by everyone in the colony, suddenly her team has recognition, resources and a place of importance for the future welfare of the population. They've known it for as long as they've been there - sooner or later the need to look to the past for technology would raise its head. And now it has.
Her plex pings as a message arrives. Setting her tea down, she finds a diary invitation from Malcolm to meet with him in the Labs in three days' time, along with an apology that it can't be sooner - but he has several projects running at once, and it's the first free space he's found.
Accepting the invitation, she sits back and considers her new boss. Indefatigably British, tidily dressed despite the general state of wear and tear of people's clothing these days. And, if she's honest with herself, she finds him rather attractive.
Don't even go there.
Shoving the rogue thought aside, she looks through a list of topics that he has attached to the invitation - an analysis of her bloom sample, a small-scale project to investigate the development of synthetic fibres to mix with the natural ones; even a discussion with Rob Stanley about creating a domesticated strain of the cotton plant that Malcolm has, rather abruptly, chosen to name after her. Best not to mention that to the team: they'd never let her live it down.
Sipping at her tea, she starts to note down items that would be useful to take with her: The piece of bloom, obviously; some samples of hemp yarns…did he have blue eyes or grey?
She gulps at the hot liquid, and nearly chokes as it scalds the roof of her mouth a little. Swallowing the mouthful, she resumes her list; some cotton bolls that haven't been ginned yet…is he seeing anyone?
Cross with herself, Yseult dumps the mug back down on the table so sharply that the contents slop over. What the hell is she thinking? The man is her boss, for heaven's sake! Abandoning her plex, and the tea, she instead grabs a coat and cycles back to her colleagues at the far end of the colony. She doesn't even realise that, for the first time in five years, she hasn't said a quick goodbye to Niall's picture on the way out.
"How'd it go, Max?" Mike calls across from the large, bulbous lump of bloom that he has retrieved from the furnace while she was away.
"Well, I think." Yseult says as she props the bike up against the side of a workshed, "The Commander's going to set some more resources aside - we could well be able to start developing a basic power loom. I've been offered some help in domesticating that wild cotton, and we have access to equipment in the Research Labs to analyse our results from the furnace. Everyone seems pretty enthusiastic about us."
"For a change." Mike snorts, going back to his heap of bloom, "Took them long enough."
"I've got a meeting with Malcolm Wallace on Commemoration day - before the ceremony."
"Lucky you."
"He seems nice enough - quite eager to help, in fact." She comes over to view the bloom.
"He's a jerk. You know he hangs upside down for an hour every morning to get his hair to stand up like that? Like a fruit bat."
Yseult laughs, and slaps him playfully on the arm, "Whether he does or he doesn't, he's our boss now. You're going to have to learn to at least tolerate him."
"You're my boss. I'll let you do that for me." He looks at her, "You joining us at Boylan's tonight? That Shannon kid's persuaded Sozume to give a koto recital."
"That sounds well worth the effort of not being tired. Count me in."
